Extension- Marshall McLuhan

While reading the entirety of the interview with Marshall McLuhan, I notice that he applies his scholarly opinions on various subjects, yet what prevails through them all is his idea of media being an extension of man. I admire that McLuhan makes it clear in the beginning of the interview that he has “no fixed point of view”; he understands that electric media is expanding faster than any form of media has in the past. He considers media in a very broad sense, such as clothing being the extension of skin or the wheel being an extension of a foot. Since this new electronic media is excelling so quickly comparatively to what has come before, he points out that people do not understand completely what is happening. McLuhan mentions that individuals see a “rear view mirror view of the world”; this means essentially that the common man is unaware of the innovation that is happening around him or her. He realizes that people are not able to fully grasp the new media until it has preceded them; the revolution is just too rapid. The most important concept he reiterates throughout the interview is to remember that it is vital to comprehend the technology that is being created. If we understand it, we are able to control it; yet, if we keep thinking in this conventional, backwards way Western civilization will become slave to technology. McLuhan believes that this electric technology will be the demise of civilization if we do not apply it a correct and healthy way.

Hearing him speak about this topic really made me feel as if this interview could have been conducted this year. He verbalizes as if he is talking about smart phones and the internet, yet the media he focuses on the most is television. His concepts are very ahead of his time and it is interesting to see how correct he was about the future. It is fascinating to think that if he was predicting the demise of civilization due to the mistreatment of media over forty years ago, what would be think about our social environment today? One of the first things he talks about is Narcissus Narcosis, what I interpreted as a trance set upon by an extension of electronic media. It becomes a sort of self hypnosis that many do not realize happens to them. It occurs because users of media are unaware of the social and psychological impact that technology has on them; people are consumed by inventions. I see this today when I look around a classroom, or walking around town and every single person is engrossed in their personal phone or computer. It truly has become an extension of themselves. But, what McLuhan notices is that it is not necessarily the content that it holds as much as the medium itself. The way I look at this is when I scroll through Facebook, it does not matter what is posted to my time line; I would scroll through it regardless of what content was shown. Media has become a state of oblivion for its users. It has started to change the way we perceive the world around us; or maybe we are just becoming ignorant.    

Marshall McLuhan also focuses on the development and history of media and how it has thus affected the environment. He speaks about the old tribal culture and how the senses were more evenly engaged. The environment was full of oral media, and with all senses involved in an equal matter, McLuhan says that it was easier for a person to be more of an individual. There were not the same kind of extensions to influence man to feel or act a certain way. Those peoples had mostly visual media which McLuhan says is the only sense that allows a person to fully detach. He notes how this all changed when the phonetic alphabet was invented, along with Gutenberg's printing press. These mediums were able to provide structure and unity to the environment. The printing press was the extension of the hand and allowed art and news to be spread to the masses, which allowed the environment to become more unified. Yet, on the other hand, it produced more alienation due to the gap between those who applied the knowledge, and those who did not. As time went on the mechanical age occurred when many more inventions and extensions were created. Technology advanced in different fields and it became possible for many more types on inventions to exist. Yet, during the time of this interview, and even more so in 2015, electric media has changed the way that technology affects the individual. Electric media enhances more than one sense at a time, therefore being a greater extension to the human body. McLuhan believes that this new media externalizes the central nervous system because it allows an individual to participate so fully in both the medium and the content. Hearing Marshall McLuhan's lengthy and sometimes chilling thoughts about the future of technology and its affects on the individual's body and mind, really makes me wonder about human kinds future. If we are not aware of the technological advances occurring today, it is possible to fall victim to it; at least we were given fair warning.